


Being Known

by Beatrice_Sank



Category: Much Ado About Nothing (2011), Much Ado About Nothing - Shakespeare
Genre: (or so they tell themselves), BAMF Beatrice, Banter, Beards (Relationships), Bisexual Characters, Crossdressing, Everything Is A Weird Pun, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Gender Issues, Hand Jobs, Mentions of War Trauma, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Shakespearean Language, Swordfighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:41:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21838420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beatrice_Sank/pseuds/Beatrice_Sank
Summary: In which it is revealed that Beatrice and Benedick used to be each other's beard, once upon a time. Then things got complicated.From the (now canon) premiss that "Benedick and Beatrice are same-sex-leaning bisexuals who generally tend to be attracted to their own sex and are both so surprised and frustrated (and later happy) that they've gotten stuck on each other.""There will always be a war between the world and us, for the world believes itself wise and has deemed us mad, queer."
Relationships: Beatrice/Benedick (Much Ado About Nothing)
Comments: 31
Kudos: 82
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	1. 1. "You may light on a husband that hath no beard."

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nonesane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nonesane/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pre-canon. The first time Beatrice saved Benedick, it was to offer him a deal.

She had always prided herself in having good enough an eye to spot a fool by a mile in plain daylight, and contrary a popular opinion in Messina, she was not prone to exaggeration. To broaden one’s view, one only needed to find the right point of elevation. Today, it was an apple tree.

During her childhood she had spent so much time hidden in trees, wishing the world would forget about her, that when it finally seemed to happen, when everybody began to accept that everything was to be expected from Hero, and nothing from her, she saw little reason to ever climb down. She often heard Leonato say that to a maid of 17, a tree was much like a husband, and that the silent kind would be the only one that would fit her character and support her boisterous spirits. But Leonato was an old man.

She enjoyed the challenge in electing a branch sturdy enough to support her. It was sound to be kept on your toes, when most people stumbled through life as if in the deepest of sleep, finding the ground under their feet only by accident. She would dance in the air on the tip of a deft arrow if only to spite the aspiring archers of Messina. And she would not marry.

There was no shortage of fools in this land, but the one she could presently see from her observatory wouldn’t have managed to walk a straight line on the edge of a precipice. Benedick of Padua was the loudest and the most conspicuous jester you could find under this sun, and had been for the two years he had lived with his uncle in Messina, awaiting the beginning of his military service. The lad was most ridiculous. He always seemed to be wearing a costume, his clothes more quaint and colourful than a bird of paradise’s feathers, though he sang like a crow: she had seen him howl at a local tavern not long after he moved in, and her ears still complained about it. He had raised his mug at her then, and asked where he could procure such a great hairpiece as hers, for he needed to look his Sunday best, come next mass, or the priest wouldn’t let him kiss his ring. She had raised two fingers to his face, and was left wondering.

She remembered the first time she saw him: his own hair was messy, his shirt wore a lewd inscription, and there was a quiet sort of fear in his look, easily missed, that had captured her attention with an iron grip. Not that fear was so rare a commodity in those parts, with war always at the door, further than even her eyes could see but near still, boiling and smoking and swallowing men, though they always seemed to win, bringing back foreign goods from faraway lands. But Sir Benedick of Padua was afraid of something greater than the shadows thrown on his future by the unforgiving sun. And once seen, this anguish shone through every gesture, at the turn of every inane joke, and never quite disappeared even in the merriest hour. He feared to be known.

And she did know him, she believed. In a singular way.

So great had been her surprise, when she had understood, that she had wanted to share it, using a turn of phrase only he would make sense of, gaily enough that it could pass for a jibe.

“I’ve made it my leisure not to care for any man, and they say it does my complexion a favour, for I am never green in envy nor pink in longing. Pardon me my lord, but I’m finding you of a very equal colour.”

This had earned her a horrified look, and almost immediately he had rebuffed her.

“Pardon me in turn, my lady. Despite what you’re claiming I’ve heard that given the chance you would often speak without catching a breath till you were blue in the face. And so I would like to save you the trouble, and bid your adieu.”

From then on, they would exchange nervous barbs every time they crossed path, which was rather often since Messina was not by any mean a large town, unsure of the other and unsure of themselves.

They both knew the sort of life they were living would be threatened by the natural course of time. They were now of an age where any sort of exchange with the opposite sex came under strict scrutiny, and that had begun to corrupt Benedick’s early popularity. Her own situation was fairly different, for the world was more ready to give up on her and believe her tale of solitude. It was as they whispered: that no maid should be seen in the company of a man, when no man should come short of feminine conquests. She had often pointed the contradiction to Hero, who had shrugged and applied more rouge to her cheeks with an art she admired greatly but from a distance. Her cousin’s insouciance was the only thing she would ever envy, though she loved her dearly, and with more consideration, she sometimes feared, than any man would be able to show.

The weather was always kind in Messina, the fruits always ripe, the prince was fair and the parties were gay: it was easy to forget that walls had a thousand ears. Mothers whispered excitedly, for they were so idle that it seemed the only thing to do; they pulled the strings for that bachelor and that maid to dance under the bower, in the presence of trusted chaperones, and made preparations for the wedding day. The truth of the matter was that war called for men, and that called for mothers, good mothers, safe mothers wilting by their swimming pool, expectant, expecting. They had told her that when she was born, her mother wept. She had vowed never to do so. And Benedick was always so merry that wherever he walked the walls seemed to crack in laughter.

The conversation she could presently hear from her station in the tree wasn't new to her, and she watched his face carefully as he kept a desperate smile tenaciously painted on it. Two of his usual companions, who she knew to be stupid brutes, were teasing him in a way that wasn't gentle – she recognized the barely veiled menaces under the weak quips. And why, they were saying, shouldn’t a gentleman of so fair a complexion, with so little beard disgracing his face win the affection of every lady in town? Certainly that was a great mystery. Were the good people of Padua aware that the _beautiful_ Benedick was finding himself single? Weren’t the ladies of Messina to his taste, then, was he so refined that the sight of a petticoat left him more curious of the lacy design than of the leg it covered? And look, there was a bug on his face, oh awfully sorry, their hand had just slipped, and was that perfume they smelt? But they heard he was always better with swords, wasn’t he, better with swords than with petticoats, so why wouldn’t he fight them on it? And they pushed him a bit too roughly, poked him a bit too hard, a promise in their gestures that soon it wouldn’t be so amusing, soon he wouldn’t laugh.

She had watched him, months before, from another tree, as he leant and kissed the rosy lips of a page of his age, whose fair hair and blue eyes were admired by all of Hero’s friends. The expression on his face had her heart tightened in something that didn’t have a proper name – maybe it was just a memory. She had had a new chambermaid, the year before. She remembered the silky feel of her tresses under her fingers, and the look on Benedick’s face was spelling the same emotion, the same wonder. She remembered when the maid’s parents had sent her away to marry in Florence. In the secret of her room, she had renewed her vows.

She could not ignore the anger in her chest any longer. She knew what to do. What was more, she believed she could help the both of them, if Benedick’s clumsy mind didn’t ruin it all.

Waiting for the moment when the three boys would walk by her tree, she let herself fall to the ground supply and addressed them as if she had always been there, ignoring their jolt of surprise at seeing a maid falling from the sky without so much as a warning.

“Pray, would you free Benedick of your escort? For he and I were to meet here under this tree, and by our agreement two was enough for company. He is late already, and wouldn’t want to tarnish the good opinion of a lady who is gracious enough to listen when he talks. Now be quick on your feet, and do not speak a word of this, for I’m afraid I have found more faults in his latest poem than in the sermon of a drunk vicar and don’t want his reputation to suffer. Though his grammar is poor, he is most gallant.”

The two lads looked at her stupidly, eyeing her long pants before they blinked and recognized a lady of higher rank. They bowed away, confused. Benedick seemed even more astonished, and privately she cursed his poor acting: he was gaping at her so widely that an army of flies could have settled in his mouth and hold court there.

She waited for them to be truly alone, and then raised an eyebrow.

“Watch yourself, Signior Benedick, for one wonders if you’re about to lay a thankful word or an entire egg.”

His mouth was opening and closing mechanically now, which she supposed was something of an improvement.

‘”What did… How are you… Why have you told them such a thing?”

Turning away from him, she sighed a deep sigh and sent a quick prayer to whatever god watched upon maids and bachelors of their kind, wishing that he would see sense.

“I believe I just bought you a new title and brought it to you on a plate of silver, my lord. Use it as a shield from all slanders. After all, it is no small merit to have converted Leonato’s wild niece, who wouldn’t look at a man if he spat in her eye. I advice you to spread that story as widely as you can, which shouldn’t be too much of a task: your voice carries far. I expect, after that, no one will mock you. But I warn you to only speak highly of me, or else I will reveal this deal for the masquerade it is.”

Benedick blinked furiously at her, only beginning to make sense of her words.

“And why would I repeat such a lie? For a lie, it certainly is. I wouldn’t be caught singing love songs under your window if I was a sparrow and you were Spring itself!

“Don’t exhaust your imagination, and call your sense back. I know what words they use around you. I know them of old, as I know where your affections lie, and where mine lead me too. I may not hold you in the highest regard, nor you I, but I think we might serve each other well, if we can bear the tediousness of each other’s company.”

He hesitated, then squinted his eyes at her.

“If your intent is to slander or to tease, I’m afraid you are wasting your time, my lady. I am none of the things you may have heard, nor do I ever intend to be.”

“Oh you are not,” she smiled, “since you are now holding hands with me, or so will everyone soon think.”

She held his gaze, forcing her expression into earnestness to appease him.

“Whatever you and I may be, it was never by intent. You may not be wise, but you do know it as well as I. And if you don’t, I pity you and will weep for your sleepless nights, if they are spent alone.”

This seemed to have an effect on him, for he averted his gaze and looked down in defeat.

“You are the most peculiar lady that ever walked these lands,” he eventually said, as if trying to decide if that was a curse or a blessing.

“So the saying goes. Do we have an agreement, Signior Benedick?”

She would have missed his nod, reluctant and shy, but she was watching him closely. He was not as light-headed as as he pretended to be. It was like looking at a young tree, frail and easily swept by the wind, but with roots spreading for miles under the earth, unseen and untraceable. It picked her curiosity more than she would have liked, and certainly more than she could explain. Not that it mattered so much: she would have to keep a close watch on him now. But she was quite confident that he would stay true to his word.

There was a sense of displacement in his face, of fragility, that she had never observed in any man or woman she knew, some controlled carelessness in his bearing that made her heart ache in kinship. As she turned away from him and reached for a low branch, she noticed he was studying her too. Selecting the reddest apple she could find, she said to him lightly:

“My uncle says a man of honour always seal a deal over fine food, so I hope this will be to your taste.”

She pressed on it until it separated into two roughly equal halves, trying to ignore the way he looked at her hands, and offered him one.

“To masks,” she toasted, biting into the apple’s flesh with gusto.

“...To masks,” he agreed, hesitating for a second before doing the same.

“On my life, I will not shake hands with you, but bring me a lady who will and we shall be friends, you and I,” she added teasingly.

His head was tilted to the side as he laughed at her quietly with a sort of wonder, and said nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That song Benedick was singing at the bar is totally "Never Gonna Give You Up", if you ask me. And I am, after all, the authority here.


	2. 2. "Let me be that I am and seek not to alter me;"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pre-Canon. Carnival leads to cross-dressing, gender shenanigans and good old-fashioned nasty sword business. Also, pining.

Every year she was grateful for Carnival. She knew the person who suggested, ages ago, that for the Winter Ball the ladies should dress themselves as gentlemanly as they could manage, and the gentlemen try to look as ladylike as they could bear certainly had dubious intentions, but it was of little consequence to her. Once a year she was breathing.

She wondered how many good husbands and how many faithful wives found relief in the event and held on to their costumes as a new and finer skin, making as many clumsy jokes as they dared about the world being upside down in the hope that no one will notice how at ease they really felt, how freed.

She was dashing in her black tailcoat and top hat, her silk tie pressed against her throat like a friendly hand, and Benedick, as always, was late. In the last two years, they had managed to keep the pretence she had set that day under the apple tree by appearing in public together when it seemed suitable. Their “courtship” was threatening to become a model of respectability, one the worried parents pointed out to their progeny as the epitome of what was desirable and proper. It didn’t mean they could bear each other any more than they used to. It was nothing if not invigorating, and for the first time in her life she was finding echo whenever she threw her wits at the nonsense of the world. Their arguments were spectacular, fireworks over a troubled sea, and never before in her life had she had such an occasion to let her emotions flow out of her, to seize her anger and hone it without fearing for her reputation. Lovers’ quarrel, people said. And sometimes it almost was, when Benedick cried out that she was holding his hand as if she were his old mother, and that not a soul would believe she was looking kindly on him. To which she usually responded that even the greatest actor in the world sometimes had headaches, when the play was badly written. She mocked his eagerness to befriend everyone he met, he satirized her perpetual need of distinction. And sometimes they allow themselves to ratify their disagreement with a heated kiss and to think nothing of it. It came with keeping so close a company, with the false intimacy they had to build to protect themselves, the honest conversations they stole from time to time, and with the comforting knowledge that it could not be anything real. A mouth should be either open or closed, and it was but a mean to an end, quick and messy, an offering of peace and quiet, less words and more tongue. Restorative, he had once called it in a fit of boldness. She hadn’t been able to rebuff him that time. It would soon come to an end anyway, for Benedick was due in the army in less than two months, and she kept telling herself that it would be a blessing, though a good number of pages would be secretly heartbroken.

Someone called her name, tearing her away from her thoughts.

“At last, my liege, I have the privilege to admire you. If I could I would kneel to kiss your sword, but alas.”

She turned around with the intention of giving her late escort a stern look, but soon found speech had deserted her. Had she been standing on a branch, she would have lost her footing. Benedick was wearing a red satin dress that was so fitted his hip bones could almost be drawn over the fabric. His legs were clad in fine black stockings and he was standing proudly in higher heels that she’d ever dare wearing. Contradictory feelings surged in her when she noticed his coppery wig, whose ringlets were artfully assembled on each side on his head. Apparently he had been granted his old wish, even though this looked nothing like her hair. Most of all, she was stricken by the ease his posture betrayed, the strength and confidence he gave off. She had learnt to recognise the way he pretended; but he wasn’t tonight. It was somehow obvious even though his eyes were obscured by dark glasses, a choice she would have ridiculed at once, had she not been so engrossed in her examination. A picture of his gaping mouth formed in her mind, and she angrily reminded herself to close hers before he found something to say. But instead, crimson lips lifted up in a smirk, and he stepped closer, humming his approbation, half-mocking and half-impressed.

“Janus be my witness, this is your greatest disguise of all, inside and out. One hesitates to call it Nature’s work.”

As he walked in circles to admire the cut of her suit, she could feel his eyes bearing down on her. In one swift movement, he got hold of her wrist to examine her cuff-links in the light. The ghost of his breath passed on her skin as he raised it in front of his face, played with the clasp for a moment, before his fingers closed over hers and he gave her a twirl, not minding that she was struggling to follow with little grace. Finally, as she was regaining her balance, he leant to speak into her ear. She had been prepared to smell vapours of heavy wine but found none, nothing but the familiar scent of Benedick’s speech, Benedick’s silly words descending on the side of her neck, and his hair brushing against hers.

“I’m not enough of a fool to believe you’re overjoyed on my sight, so I’ll conjecture you are carrying a blade under that luxury of clothing. This is playing the devil’s game. Though I must admit I didn’t believe you truly owned one. Would that I’d been corrected sooner.”

Rarely, he managed to clip her wings with his turns of phrase, and that sort of teasing, foolish as it was, put her on the edge of something that eluded her, like a phantom pain in her throat. Trying to catch his eyes behind his glasses, she thought of the old fear she had once found there. In this very minute, and for the first time, it felt like they were standing face to face on the other side of that fear, bodies flourishing under the other’s gaze, marveling at the knowledge that they were being seen.

“It’s the veil you cast over your eyes that prevents you from seeing my true nature, I swear,” she tried to counter, though her voice came out a bit weak.

“I’m glad for the shadows, or I would have burnt my eyes, looking at you all night, just as you seem to have burnt your tongue – I am doubly in luck tonight.”

Her suit suddenly was too tight an armour, and she felt her face flush against her will. An illness, she thought. Tonight, of all nights, she wasn’t herself. She had always been certain about her course of action with him, sure of her plan and sure of him, she realised, in a way she would never have confessed. And there he was, looking at her in silence, one hand resting on his hip, as if trying to pierce the greatest mystery of the universe.

“Are you trying to guess my tailor’s name, my lady?” she asked in good-humour after a moment of silence, in an attempt to restore the balance in their match.

“Nay, only to decide if that new costume of yours finally allows me to challenge you to a duel, to make you pay for all the offences you’ve caused me. I keep a list on my bosom that runs as long as your hair.”

“Is that so? I hope it keeps you warm at night, and mildly entertained. For you know that I often offend off-handedly.”

Instead of the retort she anticipated, she felt him pause.

“Indeed you do,” he said in a low voice, and her stomach clenched. For a moment she did not know what to say. It wasn’t honourable of him to break their rhythm and to use that tone, as if...

“I’ll be magnanimous then,” she countered too gaily, not allowing herself any time to think, “as it is your last carnival.”

She understood too late what she was implying, inviting the whole war in Leonato’s garden, ripping Benedick of his dress and pushing him forward in a black trench of unknown. Levity usually came to her like breathing, but tonight she felt gagged. For a second he only looked as if she had slapped him. Horrified, she hastily tried to retreat:

“I...”

“Our last carnival,” he quietly corrected, waving at her suit like he was wishing it away, and she found that she hated this tone.

“Then you’ll be free of me,” he paused, “and I of you. And then all the grammarians in Oxford will offer you their hand to dance over their lexicons, for there will be no “our” that stands and you’ll get to celebrate till the end of time.”

Now that was a painting she recognised, for they had spoken at large of the day they would finally be free of their contract, when all pretence would come to an end. The subject generally came in the middle of an argument, and they vied for the most striking hyperbole to describe their future joy and relief. It was done in a friendly spirit and offered a great motif for epic compositions. For that reason she gratefully seized the opportunity to steer the exchange toward happier shores.

“We’ll suffer from afar, and the public will weep with us,” she declaimed with a bright smile. But to her surprise, he sighed.

“The public, sweet Beatrice, will only throw cabbages at you, for I fear tragedy would never become you, even in the middle of a graveyard.”

“They wouldn’t turn me green, for I know there is only one part for a fool in those plays, and you are the best actor one could wish for.”

“It may be so,” he said flatly, taking another step back, “but a fool is allowed to be sad when he bows.”

Panic rose in her chest as she watched him turned his back on her. She did not know what to make of him when he was in such a mood – their game was supposed to be light, nothing of consequence. The familiar branch under her foot had suddenly been cut.

“On my sword,” she tried more gently, catching his arm, “bilious and jittery, oh, every day of the year, my lady, but sad, no. That would be a waste of your high spirits.”

She dragged him to her, until she could almost see his eyes behind the glasses, until she could see his half-smile was half-hearted.

“Don’t trouble yourself. I am never sad for long.”

With that, his fingers found hers on his wrist, and he touched her thumb lightly, brushing against her skin until he reached the top of her nail, and pressed as if to feel its edge, slowly, rhythmically. Her pulse quickened, but before she could wonder why he asked, his voice low:

“Can I see it then.”

It didn’t sound like a question, and his face betrayed something else, wistful and dismissive all at once.

“See what, my lady?”

He was closer now, and she did not recognise the expression he usually wore when preparing for a joke.

“Your sword.”

She was left to stare at him. His tone was serious, barely above a whisper now, his head tilted as if considering something. Desperately, she went on the only way she knew, forcing a smile and ignoring the strange undercurrent that was threatening to become a rough river as his hand got tentatively closer to her belt.

“You’d have seen a thousand better than this one, if reports of your experience are to be trusted. And my hearing is as clear as my sight.”

The hand stilled. It was true that she had watched him, from afar, exchanging pleasantries with this or that sworn brother, with the market sellers, with stable boys who were men already, even with a priest, once. She could barely remember their faces for none, inexplicably, had been as interesting as his in those moments. Her curiosity at how he would make himself understood, convey his meaning without using the words, how he would move then, how he would smile, could not be sated. It was maybe just as well that he was always so distracted. But it seemed that tonight he would not let go.

“Yes,” he breathed. “Yet, I wish you would let me see it,” but his hand moved no more.

“’Tis not a blade made for your touch, my lady.”

She was whispering too now, transfixed by his open palm, not meeting his eyes.

Suddenly his fingers closed into a fist, and he hastily stepped back, shaking his head. He looked as confused as she felt, and she let out a uneasy breath.

“You are in a strange mood tonight."

It took him a few seconds to answer, but when he did it was with the liveliness he always displayed when they were together.

“I swear I must have hit my head on my way to the palace. The night is very dark. But after all, 'tis the time of the year to be contrary.”

Despite his smile, he was shivering, she noticed: the night was cold, and the light satin of his gown glowed under the light. It was the costumes, assuredly. Any other night they would have been at each other’s throat.

“Shall we dance then? Hopefully it will turn your spirits right on their heads, and then we’ll see more clearly,” she offered, more kindly than she would have liked.

“And what would it be, my good sir? A jig or a cinque pace? Or are you too respectable for either, in such an attire?”

“Choose as you will, and I will give you measure for measure.”

As he moved to take her hand and lead her to the ballroom, he paused again, and she found him transfixed by her tie knot.

“Or maybe we should drink ourselves to oblivion, in he hope it will sober us up. Come now, I believe it is Ursula that I see pouring the drinks, which means our task is but half-done.”

They danced with abandon and a sort of desperation she did not manage to dispel, no matter how hard she tried. The circumstances, she told herself again and again.

The circumstances made a certain amount of misstep acceptable. Later on, as she was sipping wine in the company of Hero, who had condescended to wear shorts and a stray tie and looked nothing like a school boy, she realised she had not seen Benedick in a long while. Escaping the crowd of poorly cross-dressed guests, she went to look for him.

She found him by the gazebo, but he was not alone. A group of young lords was closing on him in an ominous way, and the moon shone on the blade one of them was holding. It would have looked like the beginning of a duel, had Benedick been armed, but his dress was unsuitable for any kind of fight. Her hand flew to her own sword, a family heirloom she had always wanted to wear, but she forced herself to speak first.

“Pray, my lords, what quarrel do you have with the Signior Benedick?”

The flock turned to her and began to sneer, while the tallest answered:

“His shining knight running to his defence: hail to the king and queen of carnival! We were only pitying the cow you ride each night over the moon: she’s a charming beast, but of such a character she should be put out for her own good.”

A small cut in Benedick’s satin dress caught her eye, and she felt her blood boil. If they wanted to play this game, she would keep them entertained.

Walking toward the group, she threw her hands in the air and turned on herself, speaking animatedly as she tried to gauge how many were armed:

“A great title, for certain, but how should one call you, then? For you are neither king nor queen, metal would taint on your head, and a cow is a useful and quiet beast with which you only share a jaw.”

She paused, pretending to think for a second.

“Therefore I shall call you villains, and then cut your tongues so that I’ll never have to call you anything again.”

On her last word she drew her sword and smiled as sweetly as she could, adopting a dueling posture.

“ _Messieurs, en garde_!”

For a brief moment, confusion reigned in the offenders’ ranks. Then, the man who had spoken let out a dismissive guffaw.

“I won’t fight you, lady, except if there’s something you’d want trimmed, and by the look of you I’d say it’s likely.”

“I return the compliment, though I’m afraid to discriminate between your good parts and your bad parts will be too delicate a task for my blade.”

With that, judging she had given sufficient warning, she ran toward him. His first parry was weak, but it was hard to tell if she should blame the wine or his lack of skills. In a few lunges, she made him back enough that he was standing precariously close to a pond.

“How good of a witch do you think yourself?,” she asked, striking him high on the chest with her pommel. Before he had a chance to answer, her boot in his stomach sent him over the edge.

“A pity,” she commented when it became apparent her opponent would not float.

She had no time to refine her wits, for a terrible cry was heard in her back. Turning around swiftly, blade piercing the air, she discovered a peculiar scene: a man was pressing a hand against his bloodied calf, while Benedick stood before him, one of his heels in hand. Before she could think anything of it, the last armed man hurled himself at her in a fit of rage. This one was more agile than his companions, and she quickly regretted not spending more time spying on their neighbour’s fighting lessons. But the fact that she had never had an instructor and had therefore developed a very unusual style made her an unpredictable adversary. After a couple of sloppy ripostes, she made a decisive advance. It would have been easy to counter from there, but the man was talkative.

“I shall tell that you’re holding that blade like a maid, but nobody at court will believe me!”

“Do you know this one?” she asked, out of breath, doing an empty fade to parry. “It’s called the Woman’s Guard.”

His attack was parried over her shoulder, and she used the momentum to pivot and lunge at him, her weapon cutting across his cheek. She waited for him to drop his sword and commented:

“I shall tell that you bled under my blade, but nobody at court will believe me.”

As he fled, muttering insults, she hastily turned to Benedick, and found him in a daze, glasses discarded, still holding his heel which he had used it to stab the drunk who was trying to attack her from behind.

“Are you hurt?” she asked in concern, still panting.

At first he stayed silent, fixated on her with an expression that would have been comical, if his stare had been less intense.

“I am a fool,” he whispered eventually, looking at her up and down.

“So say I,” she tried to joke, unsettled by the attention, “but was it so hard a blow that sense finally found its way through the cracks of your skull?”

He ran a hand over his face, turning left and right as if searching for an answer in the quiet gazebo. Finding none, he pointed a slightly shaky hand at her.

“You,” he said in a voice that failed to be accusing, “have done me a great disservice.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Disservice? I expect it of men like those ones to disparage my courtly deeds, not of you.”

He was walking in circle now, clearly agitated.

“Those men will be soldiers too, we’ll leave together and they’ll never cease to torment me.”

“It doesn’t cost me to say you’re a better swordsman and a quicker wit. Be at peace, nothing will happen to you.”

In two strides he was on her, looming, almost touching her, and she could not make sense of the anger in his eyes as he hissed:

“Something already has.”

And he was looking at her with an intensity that left her feeling like her suit had been ripped from her body, just like every disguise and every second skin she had ever worn, every layer of deceit, and she wondered what would be left of her, in the end. It wouldn’t be swords or petticoats, for those wouldn’t have mattered to her much, had she been given the choice. No. If he dies at war, she distantly thought, I will break my vows.

“I believe each of us has beard enough to be called “sir” by anyone unsure of their blade and “lady” by anyone unsure of their wits,” she answered bitterly. “Is it not why we were so acquainted?”

He said nothing, but the sadness he had displayed earlier returned, and he looked away from her.

“I thought you and I had a written contract, interest and principal. You didn’t choke on that apple I gave you for my troubles, though you still seem to be none the wiser.”

“Ay, I didn’t,” he finally whispered. “But now I find...”

Suddenly the tips of his fingers were resting on her jaw, caressing, until he reached under her lip and she felt his breath against her skin, as he said:

“I wish you would fight me.”

Before she could blink, he was gone, hastily retreating with something like panic – his moods were as many as his faults tonight, one replacing the other at a dizzying pace.

“It matters not. I must leave,” he stated, walking backward with only one shoe on, rubbing his face as if he doubted his head was still attached to his shoulders.

“Lady, stay away from me,” he pointed at her, and almost tripped on his own foot. “I am a two-faced dog, and should not be trusted.”

And with that, he disappeared in the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Benedick is dressed as Nanny Ashtoreth. For as far as we know, that's what his gender is.


	3. 3. "But that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pre-Canon. Benedick finds himself in a cell, and in a predicament. He also happens to be very drunk.

It was Tuesday, or maybe not. His body was hurting him like he had been beaten, which was an open possibility. No. No? He was under the impression he had been lying in this cell for at least two days now, but for some reason he still hadn’t sobered up. Well. Arms still attached, an excellent thing. He continued to pat himself. There was an indication of legs south of there, he was almost certain. Memories of alcohol were coming back to him among clouds of pain – drinking like it would save their lives with his fellow soldiers. He had been hit on the shoulder, a bit too harshly, as soldiers did, for they were teasing about… for the life of him, he couldn’t recall. He wasn’t dead, then. Not yet. After all they were still in training, still camping a day away from Messina, if you could buy a horse that was not too sick and if you didn’t find yourself locked up in the disciplinary cell, counting your limbs again and again like an illiterate jester. Beatrice would be pleased…

Ha! There had been a challenge of some nature, a bet, he remembered now.

The guard who stood behind the bars scraped his shoes on the floor, and the noise made him hiss in pain.

Women. That was the subject of the bet. Though at least one of the young lords who had been pressing him on the subject had already shared his bed and kept his hand on his back while the others laugh, all had agreed that he should at least claim one conquest before he would be allowed to profess himself an enemy of their sex. Women! Nonsense.

He must have said it out loud, for the guard sneered.

He was no more in need of a woman than he was of a dozen pints. How many times would he have to listen to such follies, from bachelors who were sound of mind and handsome, good companions, who liked him and sometimes… but they always hit him too hard in the daylight, when they didn’t think as much of death, and more of repute. He had had lovers in Messina who would never have turn their backs on him, who would never have asked, after kissing him softly again and again in a secrete garden, when he intended to marry. But soldiers were made, it seemed, of a different alloy, shaped by terror and the weight of their brothers’ gaze. He had sworn to himself that he would never be such a brute nor a deceiver again. He had but one faith. And so, he didn’t write home.

“Is’t so strange a thing,” he asked the bars of his cell, “that a man should be tired of love, and grow sick of it, and then be cured before his beard has fully grown?”

“That wine you had must have been sweet indeed, but as to being cured, you still seem to suffer from a fever that numbs your tongue. Or were you always this dull?”

It was too bright to try more than glancing at his guard through painful eyelids, and of little use since they all looked the same, he had learned during his previous retribution two months prior, black boots, black uniform and heavy helmet. He should behave more, keep his mouth shut and never try to outwit an officer again, for the company here really was poor.

“Nay, the army seems to have heightened my spirits, for I am told I provide a good distraction. In a day or two you’ll be converted, good sir, and love me as if you’d locked me up yourself.”

The sound of a baton rattling against the bars made him wince, as the guard mocked him:

“In truth, I wish I had. It serves you for being good enough a distraction to your companions that they hurled you at the watchman, and having slowed him down with such a burden, fled to their beds and slept an innocent sleep. A week in the dungeon is too small a price for this heavy a beast.”

He was beginning to think this guard was peculiar – quick-witted, for a guard at least, and unpleasant as he should be, but there was something oddly comforting to be so insulted, after months of orders and disappointing jabs.

“A week? By God, a man shall die of old age and consumption!”

“Think of your many faults and thank the Lord to be so well guarded.”

Now that was certainly a lesson to learn by heart, but he had never been well-read, or at least that was what Beatrice used to claim when he attempted an epigram. That was a thought of the past. He’d better be back at counting his limbs, this unusual fellow be cursed.

“And as an excess of punishment, I have been afflicted with a wise guard. Is it all this standing that turned you philosophy?” he growled, massaging his temples.

The man paused. When he answered, his voice came out even more muffled than it had been, barely getting through the helmet.

“Time is long, when no letter comes.”

He would have offer to drink to that statement, but all the signs indicated that he already had.

“Do you have a lady at home who’s wiser than you are and can turn philosophy on its head with a few guarded words?”

The man leaned against the bars and the shadow it projected in his cell stroke a familiar chord in him.

“Oh, plenty,” he said wistfully, and suddenly Benedick felt his full attention on him, slowly becoming conscious of his undignified position, slouched on the floor with his hair sticking to his forehead, eyes barely opened. He tried to sit up straight, pressing his palms on his face, wishing the alcohol away. He was being a diligent ass again, missing something crucial. For instance the fact that this guard looked like he would be worthy of the highest praises, deprived of his uniform. His silhouette alone made him want to see the man more clearly.

“Yet here I am, with you.”

He had an impulse to swallow, but his throat was dry.

“A great cruelty, 'tis true,” he croaked, wondering why this all sounded so familiar to his ear. “This is why I didn’t leave anyone in the waiting at home.”

“I’ve heard otherwise.”

Even to a parched brain like his, the words seemed charged.

“Oh, do you know me, then?” he asked, feigning nonchalance. “By the shape of your helmet, you don’t strike me as familiar.”

Certainly he was well-known in Messina, but those last years had brought with them a shadow that only Beatrice and her offer had been able to dispel. Until he brought another one on himself and lost his senses to the wind. What that man had heard could relate to any of his two lives, and neither would be pleasant to discuss.

“I know you well enough.”

A fit of coughing conveniently saved him time, while the guard continued to study him with what he now felt was undue curiosity.

“Weren’t you engaged to that formidable lady, Signior Leonato’s niece? I heard that she would have had none but you, though seeing you now, I cannot understand why.”

They were of the same mind then, and though he would have rather not say anything on the matter, his tongue untied itself with a will of its own. He usually knew better than to trust a guard, but with this one...

“Ay, I was. For a time. But she had no use for me, and I… I have been untrue to her.”

“Why?” the guard’s peculiar voice pressed gravely, almost sadly, and he had to close his eyes again.

He sighed deeply, furrowing his brow, and immediately regretted it.

“Because I am a beast and inept with a lie. And she always bested me at wearing those treacherous trappings. I fled a new danger before I had to beat myself over an agreement that hung above my head like a cursed arrow, pointing at the fool like a compass points north.”

Silence followed this declaration. He wondered bitterly if that guard had been sent for his soul before he could lose it in battle. If his time had come, he hoped that whatever judge would weight his worth would consider the unfairness of his situation. He had thought himself made for the company of men, doomed to secrecy. And now, in the heart of that very secrecy, that the only woman that ever made him ache would never have him… But those were thoughts for his very last moments. It would be strangely fitting for him to die blaming heaven he was not born a fair maiden.

“You didn’t trust the lady, so you left her without a word.”

Beatrice’s shocked expression at Carnival passed in his mind like a mirage, and he said nothing.

“You never wrote a line to her, nor did you use your comrades’ leaves to pass a message.”

He had been shocked too, then. The world had scrambled before his eyes, as he looked at her, and understood what he had been doing for months and months. ‘Angels have no sex’, a priest had once told him. He hadn’t known himself.

“And you never once thought of her. Though she did of you. And you kept falling into traps and getting reprimanded, because that is what the good Lord made you for.”

His head hurt like a thousand demons were dancing on it, and his heart was beginning to burn too. He tried to stand, his hand on the wall.

“I pray you would leave me in peace now. I am ill and cannot understand any of your words.”

The heavy sound of a helmet falling to the floor answered him. His vision blurred slightly.

“I’m afraid I can’t, my lord, for I was made by God, it seems, for tormenting you.”

Keys turned in the lock, and the door on its hinges. He blinked stupidly at Beatrice, who was standing before him in a guard’s uniform, bathed in the light that came through the small window of the dungeon.

“I am too good of heart and weak of mind, for you are a villain, truly, but your uncle hasn’t heard of you in months. Had you not been so senseless, you would have been on leave this week. I promised him to settle the matter, and so I will.”

She grabbed him by the shoulders with strength, forcing him to stand properly. Wide-eyed, he reached to touch her hair, surprising her in her attempt to drag him out of the cell. The locks were as soft under his fingers that they used to be: if this was all a dream, it proved at least the cruelty of his memory.

“Are you of this world?” he whispered in awe, as she coloured slightly.

“Four years we’ve been acquainted, Signior, and you still have the same questions stuck in your mouth. Now stand and follow me, before someone else notices my lack of beard.”

They walked through dark corridors, as he desperately tried to make sense of the recent events, hitting a wall now and then as he wobbled behind her.

“I won’t shed a tear on your lack of beard, for you always were like a man, though no man ever resembled you.”

Turning around, she shot him a furious look, and hissed:

“I told the rest of the guard that you had been pardoned by your officer, but if you insist to make such noise, they will find us out, and know me for what I am. Hurry.”

He was about to retort when they heard distant footsteps. Quickly she seized him and pulled him after her in a dark recess of the wall, hand on his chest to keep him steady and quiet. In a daze, he was left to study her face, now inches from his, as a sentinel walked by without noticing them. She was surveying the corridors intently, and jumped when she felt his fingers brushing her cheek again, as he whispered:

“Lady, you are a miracle, and I will never be worthy of you.”

“And you are as drunk as a vicar and should hold your tongue, your reek of cheap wine. They will keep you here eternally if you don’t come to the few senses you have left.”

“I would rather be home, and make war to you,” he said with such longing that she had to avert her eyes. After a moment she shook her head, still refusing to look at him, and her words were heavy, reproachful, like confessing a defeat:

“I’ve missed you.”

He had never been known for his wisdom, and so when he launched himself at her, pressing his lips to hers with desperation, he barely gave it a thought. And though they had kissed before, never had he trembled like he did now, or felt tears on her cheek as she pushed him against the wall, hand in his hair, biting him in a vengeful spirit until he yielded. It was Beatrice’s shape, Beatrice’s scent on his skin, it was her open mouth against his as he sighed, nails pressed into his palms. She pulled on his hair, scratched his neck, and he let her, pliable under her touch, overwhelmed. The tip of her fingers lingered on his collarbone, and he whimpered, leaning forward. Startled by the sound, she stepped back abruptly and grasped his wrists in a grip that tightened until he began to hurt. She hissed at him with more anger than he had ever seen her display, a fury that would have made him curl up like the drunk he was, had he not be reminded of a contract he had signed and then managed to break almost immediately, looking at her cut an apple in two.

“You are as false as Judas and I loathe the sight of you.”

She pushed him out of the nook and walked away, wiping her face. As she hurried out of the building, he was left staring at his feet, counted two, and reminded himself, forcefully, that she was not for him, and he was not for her.

He fell asleep in the carriage she had brought by the camp, and when he woke up in Messina, she was nowhere to be found.

At some point during the journey, he thought he heard a voice, faint and hovering over his face, sad.

“I love you not, I swear.”


	4. 4. "When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-canon. Benedick wakes up in the middle of the night with a story to tell. Beatrice has opinions of her own.  
> Rated M for married sexy times, let me know if you think the rating should go up (it seemed mild enough to me, but I'm not experienced with smut).

He woke up with a start, blinking at the moonlit room with the feeling his clothes had become a second skin, his hair stuck by sweat to his forehead. Rolling to his side, he found Beatrice lying next to him, chin resting on her hand, watching him with concern. In the four months they had been married, he had had nightmares only once before, and that was when she had been away, visiting Hero in Florence. She knew about them, nonetheless, for he wished never to keep a secret from her again, not when she looked at him with those eyes, serious and tender, the pale light of the moon giving her hair a surreal glow.

“Tell me,” she said softly, brushing a lock aside on his forehead. It wasn’t a demand as much as an offer to ease his burden.

He sighed tiredly.

“It was not as it used to be.”

The other soldiers never spoke of the war. When they had gone back to Messina, it had been like all memory of it had been erased, drowned in parties, alcohol and intrigues. Every swordsman had turned into a courtier, plotting all day long for fortune and romance as if they never had to cut another man’s throat. They had lured themselves with fairy tales of what civil life would be, and once home, they acted on that tales even though they were not fit for reality. That was what he had tried to explain to Hero, after what had transpired at her wedding. She had then told Claudio that she would live in her own house for a time, before they could decide if matrimony really suited them. It had been a wise decision. He had seen all his companions throw themselves into marriage like drown men looking for a buoy, and had blamed them for it, but in truth he pitied the ladies who had been assessed as prizes, and who were to discover after a time that they did not know their husbands, and that their husbands had no desire to know them.

It was true that, like the others, he had been joyful, like the others he had married, and the world would never let him forget about it. But there was no more comparison between his and Beatrice’s marriage and those marriages than between a pure sky and a painted ceiling. One could mimic the other, but eventually the perfect, immobile weather was bound to suffocate the soul. And they both knew too much about _trompe l’oeil_ to buy themselves a pretty cage.

“'Tis because I am by your side,” his wife commented knowingly. “Nightmares tremble at the mention of my name, and my snoring would disperse the troops of the Queen of Sleep herself, or so I was told.”

Leaning to kiss her cheek lightly, he countered:

“I believe the good poet you stole that epigramme from sometimes writes in bad faith.”

“It may be so, but though I chased him away a thousand times, I keep finding sheets of love sonnets all over my bed. Some of his works are rather lewd, and would cause a maid to lose sleep, which is why, I suppose, your slumber was troubled.”

She raised her eyebrows at him, and he was suddenly overwhelmed by how beautiful she looked, peaceful and confident, her blue nightdress too thin to hide the swell of her breasts, the curve of her hip. Sighing in contentment, he caressed her neck, and smiled when she closed her eyes to lean into his touch.

“There seems to be a shortage of maids and bachelors in this house, for we are neither, each of us. But you are right: you can scorn my bad dreams away with disdain, and drag my ravished body to different battlefields.”

She put her head on his chest, waiting for him to tell her more, and began to play distractedly with the light hair that covered his lower stomach, above the hem of his pants. Humming his approbation, he said:

“It began as it always does. I was standing in an open field, without my uniform – in truth, I was naked as the day I was born. Enemies were approaching, I heard their step, and I couldn’t run, couldn’t hide: I was alone and exposed, and they would see me, find me out, and my body would join the others in the blood-soaked trench. I knew there was no escape. But then, you appeared, my lady, in an armour shining as bright as the sun, and you stood fierce on the battlefield though you did not belong there.”

Beatrice scoffed, and scratched her nail along his hip bone.

“The rest is rather blurred in my mind but I think you insulted the enemies with that tongue of yours, quick and deadly, laughed at my pitiful form and took me out of the trench, out of that wretched place, and back here, possibly, for then I woke up and found you looking at me like a most prized trophy.”

She laughed at his tale, incredulous, her hand coming to rest flat on his stomach for a moment.

“You are mocking me, you treacherous creature.”

“By this ring, I am not.”

“If it were true, you wouldn’t wear this useless attire,” she tugged at his shirt, until he conceded and took it off. Taking advantage of his now exposed chest to circle a nipple with her thumb, she asked, leaning over him:

“Did I have a sword, then?”

“You know that you don’t need a sword to please my heart.”

With a devilish light in her eyes, she let her other hand brush lower on his stomach, her smile only widening at his sharp intake of breath.

“For a time I thought otherwise, and I kept fighting for you. But truly, are you well? Terrors of the night are real enough, when it comes to the evil that men do.”

It was supposed to be the last war. The prince had declared it so, and all had believed it, but they knew that if another came, in twenty years or six months, they would have to gather support to oppose it.

“I am well,” he said, kissing her lips. “I am here. The only war worth fighting is a merry one.”

Her expression grew suddenly serious, and she lowered her head to kiss him again, more pressingly than he had, with a sense of urgency he didn’t expect. Her breath was ragged when she faced him, her hair falling all around his face like a protective halo, and she said:

“I know my uncle called it so, but we should never trust the words of the world. I know what was said when we married. ‘At last a pair of contrary birds according their feathers to the rest of the flock. Hopefully they won’t sing so loud then, and our ears will find some rest.’ But they don’t understand the first of it.”

As she spoke, she let her fingers glide from his neck to his stomach in deliberate strokes, watching him growing agitated under her touch.

“There is no such thing as a merry war. War is always as bloody as a butcher’s stall, and as cold. But we can be merry, together.”

With that, she reached for him under the sheet, finding him hard and willing. Her hand was soft on his soft skin, demanding, and she kept her eyes on him, never looking away. They were breathing in unison, quicker now, the silk of her gown clinging to his moist skin.

“There will always be a war between the world and us, for the world believes itself wise and has deemed us mad, queer, when we argue that none here is ever the wiser. And we will always sing.”

She pressed her palm against him, twisting her wrist, the pad of her fingers only ghosting over the tip, and he gasped, arching toward her.

“Or I will always make you.”

Her amusement only grew when he tried to reach for her. Slapping his hands away, she made sure that he would yield and abide her rules, as she continued to caress him, quickening her pace.

“We will always sing, no matter how tame they would wish us to be. I will not tame you, as you will not tame me. What do you say?”

“I...” His voice came out so hoarse he would have blushed, had he not been flushed already, struggling for air, his fists pressed into the mattress as he silently prayed for release. He could feel the edge of her wedding ring as she teased him, the metal warmed by their bodies, and as it rolled against his length he let out a shameless moan.

“What do you say, my love? You always have so much to say. Speak, I will hear you.”

While he bit his lower lip in frustration, she chastised him:

“I thought we had an agreement. It’s always been a contract of sort. If you trust me, I will carry your sword. What do you say, my lord? My liege. I will be the best squire to walk this earth, for my sake and for yours. I will defend you, and I will love you because I know you. Look at me.”

She descended on him until they were almost nose to nose.

“Benedick.”

The word brushed against his panting mouth, and he cried quietly, unable to reach her lips to find absolution.

“Say my name to dispel all nightmares. I’ll fight them for you.”

“Beatrice...”

She was keeping him on the edge, and they both knew it, her touch lingering just a bit too long, pace just a bit too slow.

“Please...” he begged.

“Oh, I shall please as it pleases me. But if you’d ask… If you’d call for me as if you needed me...”

Her hand was working between them and for a moment it was all that existed: that hand, their bodies, their breaths and their eyes, in that room. The world could sneer and laugh. They had each other. He focused on what he had to say, putting all his might in the effort, and finally, finally managing to speak, low and shaky, ridiculous in a way but confident that she would hear him. She always did.

“Help.”

And in a few perfect strokes, she offered him his release, and he came sobbing blissfully, head stretched back, as she placed open mouth kisses on his chest to ease the sharpness of his pleasure.

They laid panting in silence for a few minutes. Her head was resting on his heart again, and she listened it slowly going back to its natural rhythm, feeling in harmony with herself.

“If I were as tiny as a speck of dust,” she said playfully, “I would slip inside your ear and sing my own praise until you fall asleep again. You would only dream of proud Amazons and, if I felt in the mood to tease you, of roaring stags.”

He laughed, fingers slowly finding their way through the collar of her gown.

“And still you say it won’t do to fight each other, my lady.”

“Long ago, I thought that you and I could live in such peace that nobody would dare calling it anything but love. I haven’t changed my mind.”

“Peace,” he repeated quietly as his thumb brushed between her breasts. “Yes. Peace is a good name for it.”

And he kissed her heart in reverence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I love them so much. I'm glad I got the occasion to revisit this specific version.  
> A very happy Yuletide to you, Nonesane! Thanks for the lovely prompts, this is my first Yuletide and it's been a blast thanks to you.


End file.
